Stock types

A stock type describes what a device is loaded with: A4 paper, a 100 x 150 mm label. It is what keeps a pick list off the label printer at the same bench, and a courier label off the office laser down the corridor.

Stockly → Operations → Printing → Stock types.

Columns: Name, Code, Active.

What is there after installing

Two entries, created with the module: A4 paper (a4) and Label 100 x 150 mm (label_100x150). They can be renamed; the name is what appears in the lists. Further entries are added for anything else kept loaded: a half-sheet, a wider label, headed paper.

The code cannot be changed

Code is set when the entry is created and is fixed from then on. Printers, rules and defaults all point at the code rather than the name, so changing it under a rule that names it would leave that rule pointing at nothing. The name is free to change at any time; the code is not.

Where a stock type is used

Three places, and they answer three different questions:

on a device — Stockly → Operations → Printing → Printers, the Location step of the wizard: what is this printer loaded with? A device with the field left empty stays available to every job that names no stock type. → Printers
on a rule — what does this document have to come out on? The job then only goes to devices carrying it. → Automatic printing
on a default printer row — which kind of job does this row answer for? One bench can hold a separate default for paper and for labels. → Default printers

Deleting

Printers and rules pointing at it lose their answer to what a job has to come out on. Setting Active to off instead takes it out of use: the entry is no longer offered, and everything that already names it is left intact.

Next steps

Printers — where a device declares what it holds.
Default printers — a separate answer per stock type.
Automatic printing — rules that ask for one.